She cut the call, lifted the handset, and put out a call for backup. The deputy handling dispatch promised to get help out there right away, within fifteen minutes at the most.
Not good enough. Seth knew she was here; he was spooked. That child might not have fifteen minutes.
She checked her Glock, got out of the car, and ducked behind Seth’s truck, trying to keep out of sight of the house. Front door? Back? Maybe even the Bilco access doors for the basement, just visible on the side of the house?
Before she could decide, she heard a car coming up the driveway. No way could her backup be here so fast.
Only it was. The best damn backup she’d ever seen in her life.
“Stacey!” Dean said as he jumped out of the sedan. Darting over, he joined her behind the truck, both of them instinctively taking cover. “I heard on the radio about a little boy who went missing fifty miles south of here last night. Local yokels tried to handle it themselves and didn’t go public for hours.”
“You came back to tell me?” she asked, knowing he had to have been almost here when she’d left the phone message.
“That, and I had a bad feeling. I was calling Wyatt to tell him about the report when you called. Couldn’t click over in time. Jesus, I just heard your voice mail as I pulled into the driveway and almost had a heart attack until I saw you were okay.”
Staying low, she gestured toward the rear window of the truck.
He glanced in and saw. Tension sizzled off his hard form as he growled, “The description of the kid mentioned that backpack.”
“That’s called probable cause.”
“Damn right it is.”
They both peered around the side of the truck at the house. “He came up from the basement. The window on the east side goes into the kitchen; basement door is about six feet from it, on the right.”
“Got it.”
With matched gaits, they darted toward the house, staying low. They certainly wouldn’t fool Seth into a sense of security if he looked out the window and saw the vehicles. But he might not be expecting them to go on the offensive so soon. Especially not just the two of them.
If they were lucky, he hadn’t looked outside. He might not even know Dean was here.
Reaching the end of the porch, they climbed up over the rails onto it, avoiding the steps. With weapons at the ready, they positioned themselves on either side of the window. Dean silently counted down, then jabbed his elbow sharply toward the center pane just below the lock. Glass tinkled, but the blow was precise and only the one pane broke.
He reached in, unlocked the window, and slid it up, both of them watching the closed basement door. It remained closed.
Dean climbed in first; she followed. Slowly crossing the kitchen, they eased open the door, peering down into the dimly lit stairwell, which, as she recalled, ended outside the rec room Randy had finished. A sharp turn led down a short hallway to a series of other small, finished rooms, one of which was Seth’s.
They crept down, covering each other. Dean faced the bottom, Stacey backing step by step with her weapon trained on the open doorway above in case Seth had hidden upstairs, lying in wait for them.
Her feet had just hit the floor when she heard the slam. It came from down the narrow hallway, in one of the back rooms.
“The Bilco doors,” she snapped, immediately recognizing the metallic clang and squeal.
They both hurried toward the sound, hoping to stop Seth from escaping. But as they skidded into the last room, with its low-hanging ceiling and uneven, damp cement floor, they realized they were too late. Sunlight poured from the open doors that led from the darkness up into the day.
Neither of them raced up the steps, however. They were both entirely focused on the small cot in the center of the room. And the nightmare that had been taking place down here in the hellish dark.
“Oh, my God, is he …”
Dean fell to his knees beside the cot, touching the boy who lay there, still, pale, silent. He listened to his chest, touched the tips of his fingers to his throat. It seemed like an eternity before he finally muttered, “He has a pulse. It’s slow and thready, but he’s alive.”
So relieved she almost cried, Stacey knelt, too. Using her pocketknife, she cut through the duct tape binding the child’s hands and feet. He remained utterly motionless, and she surmised that he had been drugged.
Seeing a towel on the floor, covered with a few tools and implements, she shook it empty and dragged it over the boy, trying to keep him warm and protected from the cold, damp air of the basement. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay, you’re going to be fine. We’re not going to leave you.”
He didn’t groan or whimper; in fact he barely even breathed as she gently wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Now that they thought they’d saved him from certain death, she prayed that whatever Seth had given the child to knock him out didn’t kill him anyway.
As Dean called 911, she looked around and immediately saw the tripod. It stood at the foot of the cot, set low to the ground. It was empty, but had a camera been attached, it would have been level with the boy.
At its base were wires that had been quickly disconnected. They ran to a state-of-the-art desktop computer, which was turned on. The screen was awash with odd, vivid colors. Toys, swings, grass, a blue sky.
Satan’s Playground.
She looked away.
“I need to go after Seth,” Dean said after he’d finished his call. “You okay staying here with him?”
She nodded. “Be careful. Call me and keep me posted. I’ll catch up as soon as backup gets here. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”
He leaned over the boy, brushing a tender hand across his pale, clammy forehead. Then, a muscle clenching visibly in his jaw, he pointed toward the sharp tools on the floor. They had been laid out neatly on the towel Stacey had grabbed. “Looks like he was setting everything up.”
Stacey nodded. She’d realized the same thing. “We’re fine. I won’t let anything happen to him. Now go.”
Pressing a quick kiss on her mouth, Dean went.
SETH HAD TAKEN HIS TRUCK, driving over the lawn to get around the two vehicles parked behind it. As Dean ran for his, he pulled his phone out and called Mulrooney. He explained in as few words as possible, not having time to give Kyle any more than the bare bones. That they’d found the Reaper. That he was Randy Covey’s twenty-year-old son. And that he was on the run.
“I’m going after him,” he snapped. Then he stopped short. “God damn it.”
“What?” Mulrooney asked.
“He snipped the fucking valve stems on both cars.” Both his car and Stacey’s had two flat tires on the driver’s side. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Get here fast,” he told the other agent. “But first call Wyatt. Get an APB out on Seth Covey and his vehicle.”
“Hold tight. We’re on the way.”
As he cut the call, he heard sirens, soft, in the distance. But no more than a couple of minutes away. He’d have to jump in with one of Stacey’s deputies.
Hurrying back to let her know, he headed for the open metal doors and descended into the Reaper’s personal hellhole.
“He won’t get far,” she said after he filled her in. “There are only a couple of roads that lead out of town.”
“I know.” Seeing the still-motionless child, he asked, “Any change?”
She shook her head.
A moment later, they heard voices from above. Dean darted back outside, seeing the ambulance, not a sheriff’s car, and gestured for the paramedics. They followed him down, greeted Stacey by name and immediately took over the care of the Reaper’s intended victim. Dean and Stacey watched in silence. Somehow, in the dark, their hands had twined together. She squeezed his, as if knowing that when he looked at that kid, all he saw was Jared’s face. Jared lifeless and near death.
“Do you have any idea what he took?” one EMT asked after taking the boy’s vitals.
Stacey
hurried to the desk, grabbing a prescription bottle. She tossed it to the man, who read it and shook his head. “What the hell is going on? Isn’t this Randy Covey’s place? How would he let a kid get hold of something like this?”
If only he knew.
“Long story,” she said.
The EMT went right back to the boy’s side. Stacey and Dean stayed out of the way, letting the professionals do their work. His impatience grew with every second that ticked by. The backup was taking too long; every mile that passed beneath Seth Covey’s tires gave him an advantage.
“I know it seems like forever,” she said, “but it hasn’t been. The firehouse is a couple of miles closer, that’s all. We’re pretty secluded out …” Her voice trailed off.
“What’s wrong?”
“You don’t think he’d go to Dad’s place, would he?”
He immediately shook his head. “No way. He’s panicked and on the run.”
She didn’t look so sure. “You’d think if he was that panicked he wouldn’t have stopped to take his camera.”
Not getting her at first, he followed her stare, noting that strangely empty tripod, the computer cables still tangled at the base, yanked free and dropped to the floor. Why would a serial killer lose precious minutes taking a damned video camera?
Unless he still intended to use it.
He swung around and stalked over to the desk, staring down at the desktop CPU. On the screen, nasty little people chattered and talked in excited gibberish. He clicked the mouse, running over the site, not wanting to go down the wrong vile rabbit hole, until he reached the drive-in movie theater he’d heard Lily and Brandon talking about.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered when his instincts proved right.
“What?” Stacey asked, stepping behind him.
He pointed to the sign, the marquee outside the theater. One word appeared on it, bold and large, demanding attention.
Hanging.
She gasped. “The camera.”
He’d taken it, and probably a laptop, for a reason.
“Where would he go?”
Dean had no idea. But it had to be somewhere close, in town, maybe. Someplace where Seth could quickly set up and hop online for his final performance.
The only question was, whom did he intend to hang? God, did he hope Stacey’s fears about her father didn’t bear fruit.
Desperate for more information, he clicked on the entrance to the drive-in. When asked to pay credits, he cursed the techno-psychos, then figured out how to spend some of the Reaper’s own currency.
As soon as he’d done so, the screen faded to black. Then, very slowly, a picture began to emerge. Not a cartoon, not a phantasmic world of garish light and exaggerated color. This was the real world. A real person.
“Seth,” Stacey whispered, bending low to watch as the picture grew clearer.
When it did, he immediately realized it was already happening. All the excited people in the Playground were shelling out their gold.
The intended victim was the Reaper himself. He was going to commit suicide. Now. Right now, live on the Internet.
Utterly helpless, they watched as Seth Covey, dressed all in black, pulled a noose down from above, sliding it over his head. He stood on an old-fashioned wooden box. The walls surrounding him were rough-hewn and faded, the floor bare dirt.
Seth smiled at the camera. Without hesitation, he kicked the box.
Stacey flinched as the body dropped and began to writhe on the end of the rope. But rather than covering her eyes in horror at seeing her friend’s son end his life, she smacked her hand flat on the desk.
“He’s in Dad’s old barn! It’s within reach of the wireless.”
They stared at each other for a split second, then rose and ran like hell up the stairs. He could see the barn from right where he stood. The EMTs were getting ready to bring the boy out and needed the ambulance. A siren was coming up the road, drawing closer, but still at least a minute or two away. More precious seconds would be lost to a trip up the driveway, back down, then two miles up the road.
Straight across the fields was shorter. A mile at most.
Neither of them hesitated. They both ran, flying across the ground, oblivious to the weeds and rocks covering the rough countryside. They reached the bottom of the hill, pounded through a small stream, up the other side.
How long? He didn’t want to think about how many minutes it had been, whether Seth’s body still twitched and spun. And how many sick fucks around the world were tuning in to watch.
God knew, if there was anybody who deserved the death penalty, it was probably the Reaper. But Dean wanted him to face justice. Not to escape by his own hand, his own way, on his own terms.
He found a reserve of speed and picked it up, covering the final quarter mile a few seconds ahead of Stacey. The barn door was closed, but he burst against it, shattering the old wood, splintering the planks into pieces as he stumbled inside.
He spied the killer immediately. The young man hung still. Completely still. But still Dean charged forward, tripping over something—the infernal camera. He kicked it away, dove for Seth’s dangling feet, lifting and trying to remove the pressure of his own body weight. Stacey was right behind him, shoving the wooden box back in place, and they both heaved up.
But even before they’d moved to cut him down, Dean knew they were too late. The body was deadweight. Covey’s face was purple, his neck bent at an odd angle. It had broken in the fall. And then he’d suffocated.
It was over.
The Reaper was dead.
CHAPTER 17
HOPE VALLEY HAD BOASTED a famous citizen or two in its day. Some World War II hero had hailed from the town, as had a semi-successful country singer. Even a former Virginia congressman.
The Reaper, however, topped them all.
As soon as word about the case got out, the media descended upon her small hometown, covering every inch of it like fire ants on an anthill. Stacey couldn’t get away from them. She held formal press conferences right away, with Dean and his boss by her side, but the vultures still parked outside her house at night. She felt like a bug under a microscope as they all watched, hoping something new would happen to serve as the teaser for the next broadcast.
There was nothing new left to happen. Covey was dead. His last victim, little Nicholas Logan, would survive physically unscathed, though probably mentally scarred.
They’d even found the final piece of the puzzle they’d been looking for all along. While processing the scene at the barn, Dean had noticed a slightly sunken area in the ground in the back of one of the old stalls.
Lisa. She’d been there all along, in the old barn that hadn’t been used in decades. Right under their noses.
And that was the end of that.
Still, the reporters pried into all the angles, titillated beyond belief by word that the first victim’s mother had killed her husband. They gleefully reported that the Reaper’s father was hospitalized but facing charges for theft when he was released. Somehow Rob-the-perv Monroe had even gotten tangled in there—Sheriff Who Catches Killer Stalked in Her Own Home. The mayor had quietly resigned, not stepping forward even once to take advantage of the spotlight. His sick, miserable excuse for a son was sitting in a mental ward, hopefully being tormented with the memories of what he’d done to poor Lady.
The FBI tried to keep Satan’s Playground out of it, but the media had wanted the full details of the Internet connection, and they’d found them. The site had gone black, for good this time, within twenty-four hours of Seth’s suicide.
Sick bastards. She could only hope that the FBI would catch them when they inevitably resurfaced.
“Finally got a minute alone, huh?” a voice asked from the open doorway of her office late one weekday afternoon.
Spying Mitch there, she forced a weary smile. “I think it’s my first in a week.”
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay.”
It
was true. Not great, but she was holding up. She’d just be better if she didn’t have to hold up alone. Oh, she was surrounded by friends, supported by her father and her brother, who’d finally gotten past his own situation to help his sister, his town, and his best friend through the ordeal. Her deputies had been rock-solid, the town residents sincerely grateful for a job well-done.
Even Warren Lee had done his civic duty, turning up at the station with some surveillance images from the night Lisa had been killed. Admitting he had security cameras all along his property—God, what she wouldn’t have given to know that early in this investigation—he claimed said he’d just discovered evidence, having gone looking after the case was blown open. She didn’t know that she believed him. Still, the images provided the final bit of proof that Seth had murdered Lisa Zimmerman. Everything was neatly wrapped up, the danger over.
Yet, she wasn’t happy. She went to bed alone every night. She had for several nights, ever since Dean and the rest of the Black CATs, as even the media was now calling them, headed back to D.C.
He’d called. She’d called. But somehow, something had changed. He hadn’t had to say it; she’d figured it out.
The case was over. He had no reason to be here. She’d been the one who had demanded a “meaningless,” emotionless fling for as long as he was around. Now, the only reason he would have to be around was if she wanted him to be, if this thing they had became personal. Emotional. Real.
It was. Oh, God, it was. She just didn’t know whether she could handle that.
A self-protective voice told her she was better off letting him drift away. It would be safer, less painful down the road. Another voice said it was time to let go of the fear and the regret, and take a chance on really living again.
Continue to hide in her small cocoon, playing it safe so she wouldn’t get hurt? Or allow herself to rejoin the rest of the world and open herself up to loss? But also to such tremendous possibility. Excitement, passion. Love.
“Is there anything you need me to do?”
She shook her head, bringing her thoughts back to the present. “I’m fine.”
FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series Page 31
